Two busy days. Painted a little yesterday, completing the Lost Boy painting and adding to the first Claire Luce portrait of 2025, now entitled 'Song Of Experience'. Then, a trip to Tarporley to collect my paintings there, and restoration of one of the frames back to perfect condition. Just about every exhibition requires a bit of restoration after the show. The Love Affair frame now perfect once more.
We rehearsed the Morecambe Fall in Green show but - curses! The so-called ruggedly indestructible £75 Yamaha expression pedal seems to be broken, a particularly unwanted expense. It was often unreliable. Plugging it in needed some wobbling to the connection to make it work, and last night the range was about 85% at minimum to 100% at max. This morning I dismantled it and cleaned the potentiometers with contact cleaner, but it seems to be completely dead. I can't be sure if it's the pedal or the MODX which is at fault, but the MODX has two pedal inputs and both behave in the same way; both worked when the pedal worked, both broken when the pedal is broken, which indicates that it is the pedal, but, of course, both circuits in the synth are next to each other so that could equally be a cause. Ideally I need another synthesizer, and/or another pedal, to test.
After the pedal repair, I wallpapered part of the hall, which had a damp patch which needed mould removal and new anti-damp paper. The drain outside is the probably cause, so this was sealed. How much of life is repairing. In the afternoon, I scanned (photographed) three new paintings. The photography takes a lot of work; setting up the lights on my custom stands, setting up the stands for the camera rail, setting the flatbed, the camera. I have ordered more wire to make 2 new lights, it would save time if all of the lights were ready with bulbs attached. I could also replace the tripod-rail system with custom built wooden stands which could fit the rails exactly and at the right height.
The Masochistic Gaia is therefore complete, and I've entered it as planned, plus the vegetable Oliver Cromwell, and the hugely relevant Theresienstadt painting into the ING Discerning Eye, all at £5000 or £7000. This is likely to be my last entry there for a year or two, though who can say. My last success there was with the Facebook painting.
